Blog Posts

Celebrating Independence Day

Independence Day is coming up this week, and the Liv Northgate Blog is filled with ideas for celebrating in style in true Arizona fashion. Let freedom ring! Independence Day Eats American Flag Berry Pie What better way to celebrate Independence Day this week than with a tasty American flag-themed pie? Add this to your festivities, picnics, and parade after-parties for a great way to show off your patriotism and good taste in food. We also really appreciate how the blog post for this recipe has nutritional information for you to reference. Patriotic Popcorn from Two Sisters Crafting Watching a movie in your apartment on the 4th of July? Try out this patriotic popcorn for your Independence Day movie marathon (actually, Independence Day might be a great movie to watch on Independence Day). Toss together popcorn, butter, mini marshmallows, and M&M’s to make this sweet treat. Independence Day Crafts American Flag Luminaries from Keep Calm and Decorate Pickle jars get a second life as glowing luminaries decoupaged with stars and stripes. Not a pickle fan? Mason jars also work. Set them on your porch or balcony and light them at night for a beautiful sight. Patriotic Flower Pot from Lolly Jane For this craft, you get to paint a flower pot to look like the American flag! Plant red, white, and blue flowers in the pot to enhance this effect. You will need foam brushes, a 10” flower pot, 3M painter’s tape, acrylic or chalky paint in red, white, and blue, and small star stickers. Gilbert’s 4th of July Celebration This is a free event with free parking! The site opens at 6:00 pm with the fireworks event scheduled to begin at 8:00 pm. Food trucks will be available at the Higley High School Campus or feel free to bring your own coolers with food and lots of water. Check Gilbert’s City’s 4th of July event website for additional viewing sites and information. Don’t forget the conversation at the dinner table or the parade! Take this time to catch up with loved ones you may only see during the holidays. Ask people for updates about their lives. Look for opportunities to serve others, in or out of your social circle. Spread some cheer and invite a neighbor or a friend who doesn’t have plans to yours! You may make cherished connections you’ll value long after this holiday if you do.

Good Eats: Blueberry Summer Treats

Summer is officially in full swing here in Arizona, and there’s better in the summertime than a nice blueberry treat. Get a headstart on celebrating National Blueberry Month next month! The Liv Northgate Blog is featuring five blueberry recipes to help you get ahead of the game. Blueberry Muffin Cookies from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen For a while, we were searching for an answer to the eternal question: is there really such a thing as a breakfast cookie? The answer is, unequivocally, yes. These Blueberry Muffin Cookies work great as a lunch dessert or a grab-and-go breakfast. You’ll love their soft, fresh taste. Blueberry Lemonade from Julie’s Eats & Treats Summer isn’t summer without at least one glass of fresh lemonade. Blueberry Lemonade is pretty easy to make, and it pairs well with a fresh garden salad or steak. Made from Scratch Blueberry Pancakes This recipe comes from Creations by Kara and is perfect for a Saturday morning breakfast. You will need the following ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, eggs, butter, vanilla, and fresh or frozen blueberries. Want even more blueberry flavor? Make this blueberry syrup to drown your pancakes in. Baked Blueberry Oatmeal Cups from Call Me PMC This is another breakfast recipe for anyone who has to deal with hectic mornings. Make these Baked Blueberry Oatmeal Cups on a Sunday night and enjoy them for the rest of the work week! Blueberry Banana Protein Smoothie from Amy’s Healthy Baking You can have this Blueberry Banana Protein Smoothie for breakfast or drink it after your next run or workout. Protein shakes can be heavy, powdery, and hard to swallow, but this recipe uses natural and fresh ingredients to make a light and healthy treat. Go crazy with blueberries! Share your creations with members of our Gilbert apartment community! Do you have any good blueberry recipes? Give us a recipe in the comments, and we’ll try it out!

Apartment Etiquette Tips

Living in an apartment community like Liv Northgate is a treat for our residents here in Gilbert, AZ. We value a comfortable lifestyle for everyone, so today on the blog we’re bringing awareness to an important topic, apartment etiquette. We hope these reminders will be helpful for members of our community. Communicate efficiently and politely. Being courteous to others — in an apartment community setting or in any other — starts with speaking and treating others respectfully. If you have to work around others’ preferences, habits, or needs, be open and willing to engage in a helpful conversation with the person about it. Whether you’re using the clubhouse with someone else or you’re throwing a party at your apartment, communicate with those nearby who may be affected. Be polite about how you can make adjustments so that you’re both comfortable. Clean up after yourself. Keeping your apartment and any community areas clean really takes a load off of everyone’s shoulders and contributes to everyone’s safety and comfort. Cleaning up messes can minimize the risk of injury around your building or the community, and it keeps the quality of each home and area of the community where it needs to be. So let yourself and others make the most of the clean, state-of-the-art environment here, whether you’re having fun at our poolside barbecue grills or you’re using our personally equipped fitness center, and help keep our community clean. Every effort counts! Be friendly. It may seem too simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth remembering! Being a consistently friendly person, even in passing, contributes to good relations between you and anyone, however well you know them or often you interact with them. Go out of your way to be nice and welcoming to others. Basically, treat others how you’d like to be treated — and sometimes even better, if not much bothers you. Be open to learn from your mistakes and remember that everyone is different so your efforts to understand them will be appreciated. What other essential apartment living etiquette tips do you have for us? Share with us in the comments! Thanks for reading.

DIY: Repurpose with Items from Your Closet

Welcome back to the Liv Northgate Blog. Last week we shared some ways to reduce stress via yoga, this week we’re following that up with some fun DIY projects using items from your closet, specifically jeans and tee- or button-down shirts. Chances are you may have of jeans that are worn, too small, or too big. In line with the old adage from the era of the Great Depression, we have ideas for you to “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Use up those extra jeans and other clothing items with these craft ideas. Repurpose Jeans — A Levi quilt can be both a work of art and a functional item — not to mention warm! They are great for picnics or for wrapping up in front of the TV. And they are a great way to use old jeans and preserve memories at the same time (use the square with that splotch of paint, it will remind you of painting with a loved one). For the back, use more denim, flannel, or even a nice cotton sheet. You can also make a handbag, a backpack, or an apron out of jeans. For directions, simply do an internet search using the term “recycle jeans,” which will bring up nearly 3,000,000 results. You will have no shortage of projects to choose from. Memory Quilts — Do you have a collection of old T-shirts you no longer wear, yet you can’t imagine giving up? Use them to make a memory quilt . You will enjoy the extra room in your closet, and you can enjoy the memories every time you use the quilt. The same idea can be used to make quilts or pillows from flannel shirts. From Shirt to Apron — Button-down shirts (especially in larger sizes) are perfect to use to make aprons. They make fun gifts for family members or friends, or they make a heartfelt remembrance of family members who have passed on. Easy directions for making aprons from button-down shirts can be found at this apron tutorial: from skirt to apron . Another idea is to organize a closet swap. Schedule a space at Liv Northgate for an evening and invite residents to go through their closets and bring what are wanting to give away. The night of the swap, everyone can take what they like, and then the remainder can be given to a local shelter or non-profit in the Gilbert, AZ area. It’s a win-win-win — more closet space for you, new-to-me clothes for others, and helping out a non-profit. Feel free to share your ideas with our apartment community of what and how to repurpose clothing items you don’t want in the comments section! Thanks for reading today’s post.

Yoga! It Does a Body Good

The Liv Northgate Blog hopes you’re having a great summer! Have a great month by relieving any stress you may be feeling. Now is a perfect time to address your stressors: We’ve done some research and rounded up some yoga poses to give a try. Check out our yoga classes soon! Yoga Journal has a huge selection of yoga poses you can try for all types of problems: stress, anxiety, asthma, back pain, and even insomnia are some options you can look into. Before you try some of these yoga poses, be sure to consult a doctor and make sure you don’t put yourself in a position where you could be harmed. Once you’re prepared for some stress relief, check out these posts and photos, which you can learn more about by clicking on the name. Fitness Magazine has a great video for five yoga poses to relax you before bed . These poses are great ways to wind your body and mind down from a long or stressful day. Sometimes we don’t realize how tense our bodies are until we stretch them, so set aside just eight minutes to incorporate this simple set of moves into your nighttime routine to prepare yourself for a restful sleep. For even more variety and a more intense workout, try Huffington Post’s 10 best yoga poses for stress relief . You’ll start with a Child’s Pose, move up toward an Eagle Pose, go down to a Puppy Pose, and finish with a Dolphin Pose. All of these poses will help stretch your body, making you feel more limber, relaxed, and ready to take on the world! If you’re too nervous to figure out how to do any of these moves on your own, ask a friend to be your yoga buddy so you can learn from and encourage each other for a restful workout. Of course, we offer yoga classes in our apartment community, but do you have a favorite yoga studio in Gilbert, AZ? Let us know in the comments. We hope these yoga poses help relieve any stress you may be feeling this month or anytime this year. Thanks for reading!

How to Write Poetry Part IV

Hello Liv Northgate! We’re back with our final installment of How to Write Poetry. Today our poetry form is the quintain (sometimes called quintet) poetry form. There are a variety of poem styles that are quintains including tanka, limerick, gogyohka, and pentastitch (the latter you may never have heard of, right?); or a quintain can be free verse or blank verse — as long as you are doing five lines per stanza. There is our free verse example poem consisting of five stanzas of five lines each: Seat L-41 London, the curtain rises, except there is no curtain, just an empty set, awaiting — Victoria Palace Theatre, sitting in seat L 41 — began with a bet about rap. “Rap is crap! Not even music at all.” Undaunted, Tatiana is contemplating To prove me wrong, vowing she will find, the perfect trap. I knew I would never be satisfied. No! To Tupac, Nikki Minaj, Cardi B, Big Sean, and even Eminem, But then, it happened, I was in the room where it happened, aye — One song and I was helpless. Hooked. I couldn’t say no. Not then. So clever, so witty, so much history, I was blown away by — Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton Not believing what I’d missed, obsessed,a non-stop pound — Morning, noon, and night, headphones on, singing along, Should have taken a break, my world was turned upside down, Chernow’s book, filled me in on what I’d missed, about Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton Looking for tickets non stop, a slow burn, so expensive across the nation, damn. But a lottery, I knew there was a lottery, and London, London was calling me. Looking into the lottery, I thought it would be enough, it wasn’t enough, damn. Wait for it! Tickets, tickets at Victoria Palace, London affordable and available, whee! Hamilton, I’m going to Hamilton! Eight months and an ocean away, but it will work, I’ve got my eyes on this. In London! Walking, talking, sightseeing, George’s castle is really grand, a legend I can’t wait to tell the story of tonight — Victoria Palace Theatre — Seat L-41 pure bliss, I was in the room where it happened, magic filled the stage where it happened, And history has its eyes on Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton. Of course your poem doesn’t need to be five stanzas — five lines will do. In fact, you could create a tanka or a limerick both are also quintain poems. Whichever you choose to do, please share your results in the comments. Thanks for going on this poetry writing journey this month. We appreciate the members of our Gilbert, Arizona apartment community!